Bigfork School Board reviews last year
The Bigfork School Board discussed the school’s budget, reviewed last year’s progress and renewed their insurance policy for the upcoming school year during their meeting on June 20.
Due to an increase in enrollment and a small increase in state funding at Bigfork Elementary School a surplus of $22,000 was created. Bigfork High School’s budget didn’t fare so well after the adjustment, the budget was down by $63,900 before the adjustment and ends with $3,400 surplus after the adjustments.
The district is currently working on a way to balance the budget for the schools. The budget is $191,000 more than last year but increases in expenses created a bottom line balance of $22,200 leftover in the elementary school.
“I would love to tell you the budget process is done and we know what the items are, but we don’t,” district clerk Eda Taylor said during her preliminary budget report. “The bottom line is we are getting closer to balancing the budget.”
Taylor’s recommendation for the upcoming school year was to approve a transfer of $30,000 from BES to the fund both schools share. Taylor said she hopes to see an enrollment increase at BHS the following year so there won’t have to be any cuts.
According to Taylor the biggest money saver for the district was having several staff members accept early retirement at the end of the previous school year.
Later in the meeting Superintendent Cynthia Clary informed the board that the state is considering increasing the required number of classroom hours and that this could cause an increase in school days.
“Right now the recommendation is to go from 1,080 (classroom hours per year) to 1,215,” Clary said. “That is going to impact the number of days. The state will need to vote on it, but it’s just another stick to swing when adding days to the calendar.”
BHS Principal Matt Porrovecchio presented the results from this year’s senior exit survey and an activities interest survey for students in grades 4-11. The activities survey included students from Swan River School and Bigfork to see what sports the students are interested in to make sure the school is offering popular extra curricular activities.
This survey was just for sports recognized by the Montana High School Association, so cheerleading and speech and debate were not included. The results showed that 73 percent of the students felt that sports they were interested in are currently offered at BHS.
“Basketball and football was popular,” Porrovecchio said. “The least popular was boys tennis, which is pretty reflective.”
Porrovecchio, trustee Mike Roessmann, and Clary, and activities director Kurt Paulsen will meet in the near future to review all the results from the interest survey to determine whether or not they constitute adding new sports opportunities such as wrestling.
The senior exit survey results showed four students out of the entire graduating class of 2012 felt that they didn’t have a positive learning experience while attending BHS. Porrovecchio said they are hoping to get that number up to 100 percent and that some of the anonymous student comments in the survey were being “unhappy about being held accountable for being late to class.”
BES Principal Matt Jensen shared the statistics for last school year’s office referrals at the elementary school during the board’s meeting. He said there was a significant drop in offenses in January, which is typically the busiest month, because the school held an ice cream party after the students reached 508 instances of good behavior.
The board of trustees also met with John Howard, an insurance representative for Western States Insurance Agency, to discuss renewing the school’s commercial liability insurance. The premium was kept the same as last school year, and the trustees unanimously approved the renewal.
After the upcoming school year is complete the district will be able to shop around for different insurance options.
In other Bigfork School District news:
• The district approved the consent agenda from the previous meeting. This includes hiring Brenda Clark as the new assistant principal for BES as well as several coaches and faculty members.
• Bigfork High School met their Adequate Yearly Progress goal; a measurement based on standardized test score improvements under No Child Left Behind.
• During the activities committee report, Roessmann said the high school’s new boilers are in and a small leak was found in the roof of the school. He also said there’s been a good level of participation among high school athletes in the summer basketball camp and open gym workouts. Some athletes are showing up as early as 6:30 a.m. to use the gym in preparation for fall.